08/04/2014

When BBF Yvonne DiVita, author/founder of Lipsticking and BlogPaws, asked me to play along on an 'old fashion' blog meme or blog hop, I immediately said yes.

Blog memes were popular before blogs were social media. So this post is not only fun but a bit nostalgia.

I've always wanted to be a "Writer." However, I never really knew I was until I started Diva Marketing. Funny because I wrote all the time. I've always had/and have a little note book with me to jot ideas, impressions, thoughts. I write in coffee shops, on planes, on trains, in parks, in a car. I write most everywhere. With my little note books I am never alone.

Why do I write .. to tell stories; you might have noticed that most of the posts on diva marketing wrap around a story.

Why do I write .. to clear my thoughts; writing is a way to capture ideas that sometimes seem allusive.

Why do I write .. to share and to teach; writing provides a tangible way to help others learn.

Why do I write .. because I have to.

Why do I write .. to play with words; so many choices to make when you write; it's fun to paint with the rainbow of words.

Why do I write .. this may sound odd but I write to read what I wrote.

Why do I write? Perhaps the next question is what do I want to write next?

Part of a meme is to tap a few friends who will take the concept and put their own spin on it. I am excited that three of my favorite bloggers will be joining the meme parade. Please meet ...

Paul Chaney - Paul and I share a special bond. You see, Paul was the first 'real blogger' I met offline. You always hold a special spot in your heart for your first. His four (yes count them 4!) books on blogs and social media are examples of his love of writing and teaching. He has a special gift of taking complex topics and making them understandable .. and fun. Oh and he's an awesome piano player! Drop by to read Paul's post on 8/25. Blog Twitter

Nettie Reynolds - Nettie once said to me that if you can't laugh with a person, question if that person should be in your life. Nettie not only makes me laugh but she makes me smile. Nettie's diverse career runs from working with authors & creatives to create digital awareness and even performing stand up comedy and she's a playwright. Drop by to read Nettie's post on 8/18BlogTwitter

Des Walsh - I often say, blogs/social media give back more than they take. It's unlikely that my path would have cross with this wise and smart man from Australia without the benefit of the digital world and blogs. Although Des is based on the other side of my world, through Skype, G+ Hangouts and social media his coaching, LinkIn mentoring and social media business has no geographical boundaries. Drop by to read Des' post on 8/11.BlogTwitter

Toss of a pink boa or perhaps I should say, pink notebook, to Susan Foster for starting this blog hop.

Mark has written for the New York Times, and has authored or co-created five books. His latest is the newly revised and expanded edition of “Accidental Genius: using Writing to Get to Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content.” The book helps liberate businesspeople from their status quo thinking.

In his interview for Diva Marketing, Mark not only shares his insights about creativity in business but gives us a holiday gift .. a special free writing exercise that will take our posts, tweets or campaigns to the next level.

Diva Marketing: Creativity is an illusive concept. What does creativity mean to Mark Levy?

Mark Levy: Creativity is looking at a situation from an unusual perspective. It’s making connections among phenomena that may not have any organic connection. It’s following the logical progression of an idea until the reality of that idea falls apart and you have to start guessing as to what might happen next. It’s stepping off the worn path that your thinking typically follows, so you can surprise and disorient yourself – and thus stumble upon something new.

The best way to be creative and summon up a good idea is to come up with lots of ideas first. Think of creativity as a numbers game rather than a quality game.

When you’re being creative, you’re going to make a mountain of mistakes. Turns out, though, that your mountain isn’t really composed of mistakes. It’s composed of the steps you needed to take to reach your golden idea.

It’d be nice if the mind could create more efficiently, wouldn’t it? But the mind isn’t orderly. To arrive at something novel, you need to take leaps: some logical, some illogical.

Diva Marketing: When I think about being creative, my thoughts turn to the arts. How would you describe a creative ‘business person?’

Mark Levy: Most businesspeople seldom get a chance to be creative, because they have to follow their organization’s routines and protocols. Sometimes, though, those routines and protocols fail, and the businesspeople have to get creative in a hurry. (For instance, they have to figure out how to unblock a bottleneck in manufacturing, or think up a way of entering a market that’s kept them out.)

For most businesspeople, then, having to create is tough. Why?

For one thing, since they haven’t been asked to create anything all that often, trying to come up with something new can be intimidating.

But even more important: Most businesspeople don’t know any techniques that’ll help them create. They’re told to “innovate” or “think different” or “be creative,” and that’s all the guidance they’re given. Good luck.

Trying to create without knowing any techniques is like trying to cook without pots and pans and utensils. Sure, it’s possible, but why make things so needlessly difficult?

There are hundreds of creativity techniques out there. Businesspeople need to play with a few, and practice the ones that seem natural to them. Natural is key. When a fast-breaking problem presents itself, you don’t want to rely on a technique that’s too complicated to remember or is arduous to use. The right techniques are a joy to use.

Diva Marketing: In your new book, Accidental Genius, you approach problem solving with a unique and creative technique .. freewriting. First, please tell us what is freewriting.

Mark Levy: Freewriting helps us beat our internal editor.

See, inside each of us is an internal editor that does an important job: it edits what we think and say as we think and say it, so we look smart and consistent to other people. For the most part, our editor draws upon the same thoughts over and over again, because those thoughts have worked for us in the past.

As helpful as our editor is, there’s a time when it gets in our way. It hurts us in those situations that call for thoughts that are different from those we normally use.

The editor won’t let us think potentially valuable new thoughts, because those thoughts are untested. By keeping things predictable, the editor unintentionally keeps us stuck. It guarantees that – if we keep going the way we’re going -- we’ll never be able to solve certain problems.

Freewriting, then, is a journaling technique that temporarily pushes the editor into the background, so we can get at our more honest and unusual thoughts. From these thoughts, we can create intriguing and often valuable solutions.

Diva Marketing: Can you tell us a story of how freewriting has been used to help solve a business challenge?

Mark Levy: One of my favorite stories: An executive vice president was trying to win pay raises for his entire department. Who did he have to pitch to? The organization’s Board of Directors, which included the former head of The Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan.

As you can imagine, the vice president was a wreck.

Instead of biting his nails, though, he prepared for his meeting. He bought a pen and a notebook, and every night for a week he’d do an hour of freewriting about what might happen in that meeting.

So, he’d quickly write about who was in the room, and what he’d say to them, and how they’d respond, and how he’d counter any arguments they presented. He didn’t softball the situation. In each night’s scenario, he had the Board raise the toughest objections they could, and he’d answer them.

By the time the meeting rolled around, he’d felt as if he had already lived it. He was confident that there was nothing that they could throw at him that he couldn’t handle.

He did his pitch, they loved it, and he won the raises.

Diva Marketing: It’s not unusual for people who routinely develop social media content to hit a writer's block. How would you suggest using freewriting to discover new ideas?

Mark Levy: You can use freewriting in dozens of ways to create new material. Here’s an exercise your readers can do immediately.

Open a blank document in your computer, and set a timer for seven minutes. You’re about to start writing, but first some ground rules:

No one is going to see what you’re writing unless you want them to, so be honest and bold.

Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

Don’t worry if what you’re writing is interesting or even coherent.

Write as fast as you can for the full seven minutes, without stopping for any reason. (As Ray Bradbury says, “In quickness there is truth.”)

And, if during the writing you feel like digressing, by all means follow those digressions.

In essence, I want you to approach the page without worrying about the normal rules of writing. You’re using it as a means of watching yourself think. If you write something “good,” well, that’s a bonus. It’s not necessary.

What, then, are you going to write about?

Images.

That is, think about your usual subject, start the timer, and begin putting down image after image as they appear in your mind. When one of those images seems promising, write about it. Describe what you see, and take guesses as to why you’re seeing it.

“This guy Levy tells me to write about images. OK. Sounds like a plan. But what images come to mind when I think about “prospecting”?

Well, I think of Jane, my latest client, and how I met her at that social media conference and how she wants me to build a sales funnel for her company. So I could write about her.

But another image just came to mind. I teach people how to prospect for clients, but the word prospecting is really just a metaphor. It’s probably from the gold rush of the Nineteenth Century. So I see an unshaven prospector crouching in a river bed, the water running past him, using a pan to sift for gold.

Prospecting for gold. I never thought about that analogy before. How is prospecting for clients like prospecting for gold? How is it different? Well, gold prospectors would have to leave their old lives behind them, because they had to live in the mountains for a year or more. When prospecting for clients . . . “

Images often get to ideas that we know implicitly, but haven’t yet made explicit. By following the call of images, we can create rough-draft material that, for us, is genuinely original and has inherent drama.

By the way, if you don’t come up with anything interesting in the first seven minutes, don’t fret. Do another seven minutes. And another. The more images and ideas and stories you pour onto the paper, the more likely you are to come across something you can use.

Thanks to Nettie Hartsock for introducing me to Mark. In social media disclosure, Mark sent me a comp copy of the Accidental Genius. In all candor, it's more than a great read. It's a problem solving solution that works!

04/01/2007

NEA arts funding and budgets cuts make strange bedfellows. The famed and much loved Guggenheim Musem in New York City and the worlds largest search engine Google have joined forces.So what's a little co-branding between friends?

01/16/2007

Every once in awhile you might have a dream. Just a small dream. But with a little help from a friend or 2 or 3 that dream explodes. Your vision takes on new dimensions and grows into something bigger than your original thoughts.

Original Dream - Utah/United States Film Festival. Sterling van Wagenen, a Brigham Young University film school graduate, and John Earle, Utah State Film Commissioner envisioned a film festival produced by the Utah Film Commission to entice filmmakers and tourists to Utah.

Dream Exploded - Park City, Utah Jan 18-28, 2007. The 25th anniversary of the Sundance Film Festival. In 1985 Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, founded to help young film makers, took over the Utah/United States Film Festival. (In 1991, the festival was officially renamed.)

However, instead of a way to grow the Utah film industry, Sundance became an event that championed the independent film maker. And 2 people's dream became a catalyst for thousands of people's dreams. And the rest, as they say Girlfriend, is history. The website 2006 won a webby and this year's site is rich with content including video interviews wth the artists. Too bad they're not downloadable.

Heard from Susan Getgood, Marketing Roadmaps, that as a sponsor*, HP is again helping Sundance with its social media strategy. Susan is one of the bloggers of the Backstage at Sundance blog. Sidebar: Couldn't find the blog link from the home Sundance Film Festival page. Too bad. I had to click on the HP logo which took me to the micro site. *Sundance is a non profit organization.

Marketing Sidebar: Interesting that the branding aspects of the Backstage at Sundance blog is totally HP .. it's not a co-branded look and feel. Seems a little disjointed to me. Wonder why HP chose to go in that direction. Perhaps Eric Kintz can give us an insight on this one.

In addition, check out the Snapshot Diaries contest - a photo contest. The winning entry will be turned into a short movie by film director Matt Pope. Cool grand prize is a trip for two to Sundance 2008 (airfare, hotel and event tickets), and there are 3 great runner up prizes of HP gear. Contest begins January 15, 2007 and ends January 28 2007.

Lessons Learned: If you have an idea don't be shy about bringing in people to help you. That includes your customers too! You might be surprised where their suggestions lead.

Update: Thanks to Eric Kintz and Susan Getgood for passing along my question to Karen Cage, who is responsible for Backstage @ Sundance blog. Karen kindly commented (see below) explaining that HP was in a rush to launch the blog and the look and feel will soon be updated to reflect a more consistent branding. One problem solved!

12/01/2006

Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.

Sometimes it seems the blogosphere takes itself way too seriously. However, a couple of bloggers, with cool wit and a bit of wisdom, put a humorous spin on social media or Web 2.0. Reach for one more holiday sweet .. make mine chocolate! .. and enjoy a giggle or two with me.

Bottom Row, Seat 1: She's not ditzy enough to fill this seat, but with a name like The Marketing Diva, you can't pass up Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog.

Bottom Row, Seat 2: This is a toughie. Joseph Jaffe of Jaffe Juice might work here. But I have a feeling that Seth Godin, like Richard Dawson, would be the panelist everyone else would want to play with.

Bottom Row, Seat 3: Godin and his unique outlook would fit here, if he were a woman. But since he's not, this spot goes to Tara Hunt of ::horsepigcow::. She's always got an interesting take on marketing, and has enough "scatter-brained goofiness" (her words, not mine) to sit in this final seat.

December 5th Saturn turns retrograde, slowing down some of the progress we have made over the last two weeks. Careful with driving and machinery this weekend, an accident prone influence is not the time to space out or multi task when you are in a potential deadly weapon we generally refer to as our car.

The full moon on Monday is about sharing our ideas with others without judgment or attitude, but in the spirit of cooperation to learn and understand how others think and believe.

10/31/2006

Trick or Treat! Girlfriend, I've been waiting all week to post this one. Make-up treats for Halloween from Lancome. Gotta love it!

Lancome dropped a fun, creative Halloween email campaign. It's one of the best I've seen since the Godiva Valentine chocolate and shoe strategy.

In addition to the innovative approach the email included tips, an special purchase incentive "treat" and send to a friend link.

Where the campaign let me down was the lack of integration with the Lancome website. Although the links lead to commerce pages there was no landing page. I really wanted more of the Halloween fun. Lancome got me at "Hello." Or should I say "Boo?" I would have happily spent some time at their site. A micro site with all of the cute Halloween make-up ideas would have given me a richer experience.

09/07/2006

I've been MIA the last few days from Diva Marketing. Sorry but I've been in another country with Diva blogger Marianne Richmond.. or so it seemed to me. No girlfriend, it wasn't a (well deserved) holiday on the beach with drinks that have cute little umbrellas. We were playing and working in MySpace and YouTube. Which believe me .. is a whole new world.

Every once in awhile you work with people who are willing to step off the mundane path and blaze a new trail. Donna Lyons-Miller, founder and CEO of GourmetStation, is one such amazing women.

Yesterday we took a deep breath and launched an innovative promotion - Get Out Of The Dog House Video Campaign. It's lots of social media / Web 2.0 interwoven with traditional strategies and with a touch of heart - donations to the Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) Rescue Foundation.

At Donna's suggestion Marianne and I will be blogging the progress on Diva Marketing Blog and on Resonance Partnership. We hope to share some of the lessons we've learned and will learn along the way. We also invite and encourage your suggestions, feedback and of course participation. It's been a bit of a rocky road .. MySpace makes Typepad look like Web 10.0 in terms of page development so we will be tweaking as the campaign progresses.

So how's it coming along? In under 24-hours, with no promotion - 2 orders Zip videos.

Part 1 The BackStory - Get Out Of The Dog House Campaign

A few months ago Donna & I caught up for brunch at Food 101, a great restaurant in Atlanta's Morningside neighborhood. Donna was looking for a Big Idea, on a limited budget of course (!), that would help lift awareness of the GourmetStation.

Light bulb moment! A viral video contest would be cool. Off I went to develop a fun little project that was to morph into motion art (kinetic) with mountains of moving pieces. Lucky me to have Marianne to partner with on this project. Sidebar: What is one ROI from blogging? Relationships that lead to friendships and even business partnerships.

We're fondly calling this a Smash-Up Promotional Strategy because
it is built on a smash-up of a number of social media tactics: MySpace,
YouTube, viral, word of mouth; as well as, traditional marketing
tactics: PR, couponing and partner relations. Why
include traditional? Because not all your customers are online all the
time.

Objectives

Motivate consumer interest in GourmetStation

To reinforce GourmetStation’s positioning as a “gifting solution" to current customers

Introduce GourmetStation’s positioning as a “gifting solution” to a new target audience

Goals

Create a viral video contest that engages the target audience in a fun, interact manner

To increase brand awareness and interest about GourmetStation within the existing target demographics

To evaluate the potential of a younger target group to generate incremental sales.

From the heart - We are proud to partner with the Borzoi Rescue Foundation. Borzoi's are very special to Donna who is involved with the rescue of these sweet dogs. GourmetStation will donate $10 to the Foundation for every Get Out Of The Dog House coupon that is redeemed through 12-31-06.

Promotional Elements

MySpace

YouTube (to house contest videos)

Relationship strategies

Websites and video directories

Traditional and online public relations

eMail campaign

GourmetStation website

GourmetStation extend product line

GourmetStation couponsof various levels

Viral Marketing - There are cute little buttons

And More Viral Tactics - Tell A Friend eMail, down loadable music, and the sweetest photo slideshows of Borzoi rescue dogs, dogs that need a home and a special Favorite Pooch slideshow. Send me a jpeg of your dog and I'll add it to the show [email protected]. Yes, of course little Maxie is included!

MySpace Friends - Another unique twist in this kinetic strategy
- building relationships with comedians on and off MySpace. It's not
unusual for companies to tap into the music community on MySpace.
However, the comedy community has been overlooked .. until now. It
seemed like a natural extension of our MySpace strategy. The Get Out Of The Dog House teaser videos were made by comedian Jed Fearson and TruGritz's Jen Gordon. They're also going to introduce us to their MySpace "Friends." Very cool cha cha cha!

Looking forward to seeing Your video of How You Got Into The Dog House and How You Got Out Of The Dog House! Good luck .. hope you win the Grand Prize - 12-months of GourmetStation Dinner of The Month valued at over $1000.

Next Challenge: Find and install the code for a MySpace metrics tracker and fix broken links!

06/07/2006

Sunday mornings reading the NYT on my little patio with a great cup of java. It's feels like stolen down-time moments. I even like the news-print on my fingers .. so Diva Retro!

Last week's NYT Business Section included 2 articles, that at first glance, seemed very different. Brendan I. Korner wrote about an entrepreneur who is turning vintage lingerie into lampshades. On page BU9 the chairman and CEO of the duck (quack!) was profiled. That is of course, Daniel P. Amos of Aflac.

Question: What do corsets & ducks have in common? Answer: Innovation

Nashville artist, Kelly Butler took a risk when she left a secure job to open her
bordello of unmentionables. She had some success selling her Tramp Lamps but as any small business owner knows yesterday's taste of success does not a business make. Most new entrepreneurs experience second and third and fourth thoughts along the way. Kelly did as well.

The support of friends and relatives play an important emotional role in the success of a start-up. The NYT article describes the time Kelly's burlesque friend (that's what the article said .. burlesque .. do you think that is the NYT PC for exotic dancer or stripper?) gave her bags of corsets and bustiers to turn into trash lamps. Girlfriend, even the name Trash Lamps, underwear that turns itself on, is Diva fun!

Where does the Aflac duck fit in? Aflac begin as a family business called American Life Assurance Company. Seems the public associated the name with Ed McMahon and the American Family Publishers sweepstakes. Why? I have not a clue.

But Daniel Amos wanted to change the name and rebrand it and was given the go ahead. As Mr. Amos said he was "..allowed the opportunity to fail." Being "allowed to fail" is the biggest vote of confidence one can give a person. It says green light ahead go for it all.

Mr. Amos sure did when he 1) changed the name to Aflac and 2) introduced the duck (quack!) as the new mascot. The result of his daring to be different ... name recognition at 92%.

Question: What do corsets and ducks have in common? Answer: "It just shows what's possible when you take a bigger risk." D. P. Amos

Sidebar: Should the duck (quack!) blog? Blog buddy Shel Israel would probably say no .. but then again after the ball of tin ... However, a Trash Lamp blog .. the stories Kelly could tell. I'm thinking .. pre lamp and post lamp .. even the Divas at MySpace would find that cool!

05/19/2006

Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's
virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the
weekend 'playground' time to be sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just
plain silly.

Maxie
is very cute but cuteness doesn't always pay for the doggy treats. Sometimes I think little Max should be helping out with the expenses of his doggy chocolate kisses and cookies. I might have found the perfect gig where cuteness does pay. Old Navy is on a search for a new spokesdog mascot to star in ad campaigns and commercials.

All kidding aside, Gap, Inc. has created an innovtive and fun strategy that is attracting the attention of dog lovers online and off. You can nominate your pooch for the honor by submitting a photo on a special website. The site is loaded with games and pet information. Don't have a picture? Take Spot to a casting call where photgraphers will snap your pup.

Of course you want to see your dog in the cast of thousands so you click back to website. The technology falls flat at this point. It's almost impossible to find your dog's picture and the photos are not showing up. Very frustrating.

There's one more surprise and this is totally awesome. Coming back into the site <after submitting your photo> you are greeted with a splash page film about your very own pooch's adventure becomeing a star. How cool is that?

Diva's just for a giggle let's spin this and show The Gap how they could have included a little Web 2.0 magic and extended the buzz even further.

Make it easy to download the film. I'm betting we'd see a lot on YouTube, blogs and websites.

Mercury, the planet of communication and commerce is moving into its own kingdom of Gemini today. This position is excellent for getting your message out. What do you need to communicate about your business in order to connect with your customers?

The sun enters Gemini on Sunday giving a one two punch to communication, connecting, and sales. However because Mercury is traveling with the Sun, essentially hiding in the suns shadow, it is best to keep your marketing plans under wrap until you are ready to launch.

Monday is a daydreamer’s paradise, let your creative thoughts flow, and just remember to click the save button so your brilliance doesn’t disappear into never never land.

02/03/2006

Alright, I admit it...I'm a romantic at heart. And I love giving (and getting) presents. Today's Friday Fun is about creating a magical Valentine's Dayfor you and your special somebody.

A few years ago my nephew Scott visited me during his February
vacation. He arrived on Valentine's Day and walked off the plane with
the largest box of chocolates I've ever seen. Scott was only 14 but he got
it. Divos, a word to the wise...the day of roses, chocolates and bling is days away...and counting down.

Altho I can't give you a heart box of candy, thanks to two wonderful clients, GourmetStation and Maggie Macnab, I do have some special Valentine's Day treats!

Dinner reservations on VD may be difficult to make; even if you can get into the cool new place, in an over crowded restaurant, that anticipated romantic night may be impossible. How about a gourmet meal in the privacy of your home? Light a few candles, put on some romantic music, open a nice Cabernet and take all the time you need in between courses <wink>.

Can't cook? Never fear... I've got it covered for you! GourmetStation is offering Diva Marketing readers $10 off any product.

My recommendation is the Valentine Romance Dinner complete with floating heart-shaped candle, Valentine poem and card. This special treat is available from today February 3rd through Valentine's Day February 14th. Use the code divava106.

If you're romanced challenged Delicious Destination's (GourmetStation's blog) is running a series of romantic tips through Valentine's Day.

And as Maggie says "For those of you who may be just slightly jaded on the whole relationship thing, there's also something for you entitled: My Pet is my Valentine. How frequently can we relate to the times when the four-footeds won out over the two-footeds?"Sidebar: Note to self...must remember to get Max special VD doggy treats.

Maggie welcomes you to use her designs in creating your own Valentines. Right click on the image and highlight Save As as a gif or jpg.